Dramaturgy - History

History

The term "dramaturgy" was coined by the German dramatist Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. From 1767-1770 he wrote and published a series of criticisms entitled the Hamburg Dramaturgy (Hamburgische Dramaturgie). These works analyzed, criticized and theorized the German theatre, and made Lessing the father of modern Dramaturgy.

Another important work to the Western theatre tradition work is the Poetics by Aristotle (written around 335 BC). In this work Aristotle analyses tragedy. He considers Oedipus Rex (c. 429 BC) as the quintessential dramatic work. He analyses the relations among character, action, and speech, gives examples of what he considers to be good plots, and examines the reactions the plays provoke in the audience. Many of his "rules" are often associated with "Aristotelian drama", wherein deus ex machina is a weakness the action is structured economically. In Poetics he discusses many key concepts of drama, such as anagnorisis and catharsis. In the last century Aristotle's analysis has formed the basis for numerous TV and film-writing guides.

The Poetics is the earliest surviving Western work of dramatic theory. Probably the earliest non-Western dramaturgic work is the Indian Sanskrit "Natayasatra" ('The Art of Theatre') written about 100 AD, which describes the elements, forms and narrative elements of the ten major types of ancient Indian dance dramas.